You are average music listener or someone who prefers keeping the headphone plugged in on your iPhone XS Max or prefer having a headphone for most of your time and so on. Well, what would be your first reaction if there’s no audio coming out of the built-in speaker. I would simply press the volume buttons to check if the volume levels are low which is often one of the reasons why you aren’t getting any audio from the speaker but to no avail. However, when you were just going around the Settings to check what’s wrong and see that headphone mode is active even when you unplugged the headphone jack. What do you do?

There are two reasons why the phone is still stuck on headphone mode even after you have removed it. First up, there is a glitch or bug or the software might have crashed or the firmware faced any temporary software glitch when you either plugged the headphone jack or removed it thereby sticking to the headphone mode enabled even after you removed it. Another possible explanation could be hardware damage that could be anything from water damage to the headphone port or other components involved in the same causing the headphone mode to stay active even after there’s no headphone jack plugged thereby suppressing the audio from coming out of a built-in speaker.

Before you rush to a nearby Apple service center to find out a way out, here are a few ways you can try and fix the iPhone XS Max stuck on headphone mode using some workarounds that might fix a string of software issues. However, for any hardware issue, you need to visit a service center to get it fixed unless you know how to dismantle your iPhone XS Max and fix the headphone mode issue enabled.

How to fix an Apple iPhone XS Max that is stuck on headphone mode?

GetDroidTips presents some of the workarounds that could help fix the iPhone XS Max stick on headphone mode even though there’s no headphone connected to it.

First Solution: Soft Reboot the iPhone XS Max

It is common for even the most powerful smartphones like the iPhone XS Max that we are discussing here to end up in one or another problem due to a software glitch or technical snag and whatnot. Since there are just too many moving parts and variables, it is common for smartphones to exhibit problems similar to the iPhone XS Max stuck on headphone mode issue that I am elaborating here. However, most of these issues are fairly basic and temporary and can be fixed simply with a soft reboot which is just a simple reboot. You can put your phone to sleep for a few seconds and reboot it and check whether the headphone mode icon is gone or not. If not, proceed to the next solution that might be helpful.

Second Solution: Perform a Forced Reboot

If a soft reboot didn’t help in your favor, maybe a forced reboot will as the same suggests, it puts all the apps and services to sleep abruptly. It is often used to fix a phone which is not responding or has a frozen screen but there are plenty of applications to it such as the headphone mode enabled issue that you can resolve using the given procedure.

  • First of all, press Volume UP button and then, quickly press the Volume DOWN button.
  • The second step is to press and hold the Side Button for a while until the phone doesn’t turn on or shows an Apple logo.
  • Let the system restart on its own which shouldn’t take more than minute and check if the problem is still there or not.

Third Solution: Try plugging & unplugging the headphone

This method can come handy. It is quite reasonable for your iPhone XS Max to get stuck on headphone mode when you frequent plug and play and unplug. Although this shouldn’t happen, there are chances that it could happen to throw your phone under the train as it wouldn’t produce any sound via its built-in speaker and rather assume that the headphone is still on. Try plugging and unplugging the headphone jack several times as it might help. If not, you can proceed to the next solution listed below.

Fourth Solution: Reset all the settings

This will probably rectify the overall settings including system settings, cellular, and network-related settings and others by resetting it to its original factory reset. I just hope this method works as it has its pros as said and thus, I have included this method here in this troubleshooting guide to fix iPhone XS Max stuck on headphone mode. You can reset all the settings on your phone using the dedicated command that you’ll find within the Settings app » General » Reset » Tap on Reset All the Settings. Here, the next screen will prompt the user to enter the passcode to authenticate the step proceeding which, all the settings will be restored.

Fifth Solution: Update the Firmware

Before performing a factory reset which is basically the next method, try using this method that might help fix the problem. Here, you need to update the firmware since an outdated firmware has its own slew of issues which you shouldn’t entertain at all. As you are using an iPhone XS Max which receives bootload of updates almost every month, you are in for a treat as updates tend to fix issues with the previous firmware bugs and all and thus, you must try it too.

  • Launch the Settings app and proceed to General.
  • Next is to check out if there are any updates available within the Software Updates section.
  • If yes, download the file and install it.
  • If no, wait until a firmware update is released and meanwhile try other methods to workaround the iPhone XS Max stuck on headphone mode.

Sixth Solution: Perform a full-scale Factory Reset

This is a pretty extreme method so you if you are going through with it, I need you to advise that you must take a backup of all the data you want to secure since factory reset will erase all the data from your iPhone XS Max for real. You can check out the factory reset command via Settings » General » Reset » Erase all user data and settings and proceed with the same. Hopefully, this fixes the problem you are facing as well as a bunch of other software-related problems must go as well.

The Ultimate Solution

Most of the cases must be from the software part and not the hardware part which means most of the users must have already found the solution to their problems, however, not everyone is satisfied at the moment as they might still face the problem. If it is too frequent or resilient and doesn’t go away for quite a long time, maybe you need to find a nearby service center or Apple Support might be available at your disposal. I don’t usually recommend going to a third-party service center as it will void the warranty but it is an available option and thus, I have listed it here.